Chapter XXIV: Craig’s Visit

March was nearly gone when Craig Mason arrived at the Prospect House unexpectedly on the noon train, and Mrs. Taylor was greatly upset and flurried in her wish to do him honor. Her silver forks and best china were brought out and Uncle Zach offered him “Miss Tracy’s saloon” to sit in, if he wanted it. Craig declined the saloon, saying he was only going to spend the night and preferred to sit with his host and hostess, if they would allow it. He was looking in excellent health, and told them he weighed twenty pounds more than when he came to Ridgefield in the summer. He talked freely of Mark and Helen, and laughed heartily over Jeff’s novel way of deciding between Chicago and Ridgefield.

“There is a good deal in that boy to be made or marred, and I am curious to know which it will be.”

“Made, I think, for he had good envyrimen’ here,” Uncle Zach replied, and then branched off into _hereditary_ as exemplified by Mark, if he did run off with an heiress. “None of it there, I tell you. No, sir,” he said. “A pretty woman will make a man do a lot of things. Adam had no idea of eatin’ that apple till Eve tempted him. He hadn’t any hereditary. No more has Mark. No, sir! That gal tetered up to him and purred round him like a kitten. I can remember now findin’ her time and agin in the office when she’d no call to be there, and she was so all fired handsome he couldn’t help it. Why, I liked her myself. Yes, sir, I did!”

He said the last rather low, with a furtive look at Dot, who was picking up the ball of yarn from which she was knitting and with which her kitten had been playing. Uncle Zach had never told her, nor any one, of the kiss Helen had given him the day she went away. But he had not forgotten it, and he stroked the place on his hand as he wandered on about _hereditary_ and _envyrimen’_, till Craig was tired, and seizing the opportunity of a pause, said abruptly, “Can you tell me where Miss Alice Tracy lives. I know it is among the mountains, but have forgotten the place. I am going to Albany, and thought a——, I told mother, perhaps I’d call. Do you remember the town?”

“Why, yes,—Rocky Point,” Uncle Zach replied, without the slightest suspicion. “Goin’ to call on her, are you? Wall, I’m glad on’t. A nice little girl,—not so handsome as t’other one, but mighty pretty, with takin’ ways. She’s keepin’ school up there, and Christmas she sent Dot and me a drawin’ made by herself of the north piazza. Did you know she could draw?”

Craig did not, and Uncle Zach continued: “Wall, she can,—nateral, too, as life. It’s a picter of that afternoon when we sot on the piazza and you read from that man Brown. We are all there, some plainer than others, and I’ll be dumbed if she didn’t draw me a noddin’, as Dot says I was, but I’d know myself in the dark, though I didn’t know I was quite so dumpy. I’ll get it and show it to you. We’ve had it framed and keep it hung up with Dot’s ancestors and the Boston tea party; seems appropriate seein’ ’twas a kind of party we was havin’. Here ’tis.”

He handed Craig a sketch of a group on the north piazza, each one of which could be recognized. There was Helen gracefully reclining in the hammock, with her arm and hand hanging down as Craig remembered it,—Mark, with a quizzical expression on his face, standing by the corner,—Uncle Zach unmistakably nodding in his chair, and next to him, himself, with a collar which nearly cut his ears and so interested in the book he was reading that his interest showed on his face, and he could almost hear the sentence at which he stopped to find Helen asleep. Alice was the least conspicuous of the group. She was sitting on the steps with folded hands and looking off under the trees where there was a faint outline of a boy balancing himself on his head. Craig looked at her the longest, knowing she had not done herself justice, but seeing distinctly in his mind’s eye the graceful figure, the sweet face, the clearly cut features and blue eyes, which, apart from Helen’s more brilliant beauty, would be called very attractive.

“Good, ain’t it? I wouldn’t take a dollar for it without the frame,” Uncle Zacheus said.

Craig made no reply, but thought he wouldn’t take many dollars for it, if it were his. Giving it back to Mr. Taylor he asked if he knew what trains stopped at Rocky Point, and the name of Alice’s uncle. Uncle Zach said only the accommodations stopped there, and he didn’t know the name of the uncle.

“Easy to find, though,—or she is, as she’s keepin’ school. Ask for the schoolmarm, but what are you goin’ off tomorrer for? Stay, and if the roads ain’t too bad, we’ll have a spin on the race track with Paul and Virginny. By the way, how is Dido?”

“I don’t know. I’ve sold her,” Craig replied.

“What under the canopy you sold Dido for? The nicest boss I ever seen unless it was Virginny when she was young,” Uncle Zacheus exclaimed.

Craig could not explain that the principal reason for selling Dido was that she was connected with a part of his life he would gladly forget, and he gave another reason.

“I don’t know as you know that once when I was driving her she was frightened at a baby cart and ran away with me. I have heard that horses when once they have run are apt to do so again, and I found it true with Dido. She seemed to be always looking for that cart till mother was afraid to ride after her. So I sold her where I knew she would be kindly treated.”

The clock was striking ten, and Craig, who knew it was past Uncle Zach’s bed time, signified his wish to retire. He was given his old room, where he had burned the roses and the white and gold book, and as he recalled the pain and humiliation of that night it scarcely seemed possible that he could be as happy and light hearted as he was now.

“Thank God, that dream is over,” he said, as he lay down to sleep and dream of what might possibly be on the morrow.

The next day he left the hotel, to the great regret of Uncle Zach, who urged him to stay longer and who refused any remuneration.

“I’d laugh to see me take anything. No, sir! I ain’t so mean as that. I’m glad to have you here. It does me good to have refined folks round like you. Come again. Give my regards and Dot’s to Miss Alice. Tell her to come here next summer. Shan’t cost her a cent. I don’t s’pose she’s got a great many to spend. I liked her build. I b’lieve she’s a truer one than t’other one, though I liked her amazingly.”

Craig nodded and shook hands with his host and hostess and was gone.

“It seems funny,—his stoppin’ to see Miss Alice,” Uncle Zach said as he looked after him. “He never seemed to take to her much when she was here. What do you s’pose it’s for?”

He turned inquiringly to his wife, who, quicker of comprehension, replied, “I don’t s’pose; I know, and so would you, if you had half an eye.”

Rather slowly it dawned upon Uncle Zach, together with the fitness of the arrangement. No two could be better suited to each other than Craig and Alice, and he gave it his sanction at once, with his characteristic, “Wall, I’ll be dumbed! I b’lieve you are right, and I’m glad on’t.”